“I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.”

— J. B. S. Haldane

Possible Worlds and Other Papers (1927), p. 286
Similar remarks that seem derived from this have in recent years been attributed to Arthur Stanley Eddington, as well as to Haldane, but without citations of an original source:
The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.
The world is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.
Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.

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J. B. S. Haldane 32

Geneticist and evolutionary biologist 1892–1964

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Context: I don’t know the future, but I do know this: the best is yet to be! Heaven awaits us, and that will be far, far more glorious than anything we can ever imagine. I know that soon my life will be over. I thank God for it, and for all He has given me in this life. But I look forward to Heaven. I look forward to the reunion with friends and loved ones who have gone on before. I look forward to Heaven’s freedom from sorrow and pain. I also look forward to serving God in ways we can’t begin to imagine, for the Bible makes it clear that Heaven is not a place of idleness. And most of all, I look forward to seeing Christ and bowing before Him in praise and gratitude for all He has done for us, and for using me on this earth by His grace — just as I am.

“Doing what you're supposed to do is always boring. I can't imagine anything worse than being required to have fun.”

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“The Universe may be stranger than we can imagine, but it's going to have a tough time outdoing Egan.”

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“I suppose that I believe in another sort of a surreality or super-reality, but it would have to be on a wider basis than the encounters of myself and me.”

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As quoted in "My interview with R.A. Lafferty", by Tom Jackson, originally published in Lan's Lantern #39 (1991)
Context: I don't regard myself as a Surrealist in the sense of the "Surrealist Manifesto" published by Andre Breton in 1924. To me, that Manifesto is somewhat dated, being a recoil from World War I, and being too heavily Freudian. My own unconscious is more Jungian than Freudian. But if Breton hadn't staked claim to the name, I would probably call myself a Surrealist in the "Remembrance of Things Within" sense, but not in the "world of dream and fantasy joined to the everyday rational world, becoming 'an absolute reality, a surreality'." I suppose that I believe in another sort of a surreality or super-reality, but it would have to be on a wider basis than the encounters of myself and me. As often as not, it is the subconscious that supplies the rational element, and the exterior world that supplies the dream and fantasy feeling.

“There are more things, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”

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“The idea of the future, pregnant with an infinity of possibilities, is thus more fruitful than the future itself, and this is why we find more charm in hope than in possession, in dreams than in reality.”

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“I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.”

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J. B. S. Haldane 32

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